By the very nature of a desert climate, much of the West is challenged to get adequate access to life-giving water. Certainly with the ballooning population growth we’ve experienced in the Southwest, our largest source of water — the Colorado River — has become severely over extended. Add climate change and an 11-year drought, and the entire Colorado River basin is under siege like never before, with demand far exceeding supply and water storage reserves almost half empty.

By supporting a transition to new, clean energy projects in our state and ensuring that existing coal plants reduce their pollution, we can restore and protect the clean air and scenic views that attract visitors to the Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, and other now-polluted parks in the region.

Benjamin Franklin probably was not being literal when he wrote, “When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.” But the literal interpretation certainly applies to the approximately 25 million Americans who live in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. People in these states don’t need Earth Day or Water Awareness Month celebrations to remind them of the worth of their water. They already know that their well — the Colorado River — is running dry.

The Interior Department has extended a temporary ban on the filing of new mining claims near the Grand Canyon with an eye toward protecting 1 million acres and giving the federal government more time to study the economic and environmental effects of mining.

A new government report says already scarce water supplies in the Western United States are likely to dwindle further as a result of climate change, exacerbating problems for millions of water users in the West.